Following is the speech by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, at the 2017 Hong Kong Women Celebrating International Women's Day Dinner today (March 6):

Let me say a few words in English for the benefit of the consul-generals.

I just want to say that the Hong Kong SAR Government attaches great importance to enhance the well-being of women in Hong Kong. A few figures are worth remembering: Of the Hong Kong's current population of 7.3 million, if you take away 350 000 foreign domestic helpers, we only left around 6.9 million local population. Women actually account for 3.62 million and 3.37 million are men, so actually women outnumbered men by around 250 000. So it’s a very significant figure to bear in mind.

The other thing is: if you look at the number of female students at our universities, Government-funded places, 54.7 per cent actually now taken up by female students, outnumbering men. And even for medical faculty is half-half (split between) female and male. But if you look at the faculties like business, management and also education, women far outnumbered men. So we are talking about a very important situation in Hong Kong.

But more importantly, the Government now adopts a three-pronged strategy -- enabling, empowering and education to promote the rights and benefits of women in Hong Kong. We also attach great importance to implement gender mainstreaming. Every government policy, before they go to the public arena, has to go through vetting in terms of gender indications, making sure that we actually assess the implications on gender, particularly with the objectives of promoting equality, gender equality and provisions of resources for women in particular. So to cut a long story short, we are doing what we can to promote the rights of women.

Within the Hong Kong SAR Government, one third of the senior positions (are) now occupied by women officers as well. So Hong Kong is really moving ahead in a big way, but still, we got a long way to go in terms of real equality on all fronts. So we should continue to do our best, to provide a level playing field in the long term. But in general, Hong Kong is doing pretty well, comparing with other neighbouring economies. And on that note, I wish you a delightful, happy and memorable evening.